RETIREMENT

Thursday, November 12th was my last day with Central Billing Office.  I’ve been working for Tracey there since 2014, except for 11 months when we moved to Idaho Falls.  Devin and I decided that it was time for me to be home full time with Tanner.  I am so dang excited to be home with him that I can’t even stand it.  That doesn’t mean that I am sad about leaving my job though.  I was a baby when I started working there.  Devin and I had only been married for 3 months, and I hadn’t even turned 20 yet.  They helped me raise Tanner and he has so many “aunts” at CBO.  

I started out my first week being home by being tested for COVID.  A client whose nails I did at the beginning of the month messaged me saying that she tested positive for COVID.  I have felt a little weird.  I can’t taste or smell anything.  Honestly, I’m not sure if I can’t smell/taste because I feel like if I have COVID I shouldn’t be able to, or if it’s just due to a cold.  My brother Kendal thought he had COVID, but his test came back negative last week.  As did my mom and my dads.  My mom’s had cold-like symptoms for the last two weeks.  I’m really praying it’s just a cold.  I’ve felt relatively fine other than I’m tired.  But again, all cold-like symptoms.  Hopefully I will have my results back in the morning.  

Tanner and I took our 4th load of leaves to the dump today. I cannot believe how many freaking leaves are on my lawn.  Bless Devin and all the other years that he’s cleaned them.  Sweet mother of Moses you can’t even understand how many leaves have fallen off of my trees.  Last weekend D gave me one little lesson on how to back a trailer and now I’m basically a pro.  Haha! Not, but really, I’m proud of myself for learning how to back a trailer!  After being married to a farmer for 7 years now, you think I would have learned sooner.  But in D’s defense, I dont have a wonderful track record right now with driving his truck for him to trust me to do it.  LOL! Two Saturday’s ago, I backed the truck into the plow up at Dry Lake.  Then last Saturday, I totally scraped his truck on the mailbox.  I can’t win with this new truck!  I’m so used to just driving my car that I have misjudged distances that last couple of times. Oh well.  Nothing I can do about it now.

I’m excited to be home more now and hopefully be able to keep up with my blog and other things that I want to do. 

August 2020

July 31st, LaDawn had to have emergency surgery. A few days prior she had somehow injured her finger and y’all...it was so red! It needed to be looked at ASAP. She had gone into instacare, they did blood work and determined she had a blood infection. Her appointment on the 31st was with the hand specialist. He determined that if they didn’t do the surgery, she could be septic. The cleaned out the infection as best as they could, but she has to go to the hospital twice a day for 6 weeks to have an antibiotic put in through a PICC line. It’s been rough, but she’s definitely been handling it like a champ! 

On August 2nd, Tanner had to have the COVID test done. Y’all that was awful to watch!! We had zero wait time, but the guy that did the test acted as if he had never been in contact with a child in his entire life. Ladawn had to have the test done before her surgery, and she said they spun the swab like 6 times. YALL HE DID NOT SPIN THE SWAB 6 TIMES. IT WAS LIKE 80! (Also, I was trying to make T feel more comfortable since they come out looking like astronauts...and I tell T to say hi...this man child legit says “hello little boy”.......” I about died right there. So weird!!)

Devin wasn’t allowed to be in the hospital with us. Thanks a lot COVID.  The surgery went well. We took a wonderful nap together after. It was nice that T was tired enough to nap, haha! Giving him medicine around the clock was the worst part. Horrible. Tylenol every 4 hours and ibuprofen every 6. I felt like was constantly shoving a syringe down his throat! And he hated it!! His poor little ears still hurt, I assume from being so close to the nerve. Thankfully he’s doing so much better! His sleeping has improved DRASTICALLY!  Also, little side note--the nurses and anesthesiologist put a name band AND wrapped Barneys foot! How adorable?!

After Ts surgery, we stayed home for a few days. We were able to spend some time with Dev and go to Hill Air Force Base! Y’all...this kid LOVES planes!! He was just in awe. We couldn’t get him out of the car seat before he was yelling “planes! Planes everywhere!” The smile on his face was just heart melting. 

We went to Thanksgiving Point with Uncle Derik the next day and we went to the Butterfly Biosphere. It was so neat! We ate at Smash Burger and then had Maddox for dinner. Y’all—their salmon is TO. DIE. FOR. When I met Devin, he gave me the most perfect saying. “If it swims in the sea, it’s not for me!”  Except for Maddox’s salmon. That is most definitely for me!

On the 17th we got the best surprise EVER! Uncle Kendal came home from his mission!!! He surprised us all and we are so happy to have him back with us! We didn’t think he was supposed to come home until September 9th. What a blessing!!! 

August 22 we went with my family to Bear Lake. We had so much fun!! Tanner is a little fish and he loved being able to spend the day with grandma, papa, aunts, uncles and HADLEY! His little BFF! What a special thing family is. The most important thing in the entire world and we are so lucky to live by both families.

Small review: BMTC (podcast)

Big Mad True Crime-Heather Ashley

Hey y’all—I’m wanting to write about the new podcast I’ve binged on. Big Mad True Crime is a podcast done by Heather Ashley (insta: @theheatherashley) and I LOVE IT! It’s a true crime podcast done by a lady who knows how to get. crap. done. Y’all! I’ve been listening to a lot of true crime podcasts and hers is BY FAR my favorite. 

Heather is not only telling you about a case..she is ACTIVELY helping the families of these victims who have not had justice brought to them! (Monica Moyen and Egypt Covington’s cases are the ones that immediately come to mind—haven’t heard of them?! THATS THE PROBLEM!) She makes phone calls, interviews families and even persons of interest! YALL—she’s not sitting on her bum doing nothing. She is being PROACTIVE! 

Now, I’ll admit that I have written much better reviews...and maybe one day when it’s not past my bedtime...I’ll go into more depth of her podcast..but for now —go give her a follow! Listen to her podcast and be aware of what’s going on. (Yes, there’s some swearing..just FYI—like F bomb swearing so don’t say I didn’t warn you! Heather, if you ever read this I am from Utah aannnnddd I know how much you love Utah hahaha) we can be proactive by making these cases HEARD!! 

With love,

Jess :) 

PS—some of them can be graphic. So again, don’t say I didn’t warn you! I read the title on sweet little Noah Tomlin and couldn’t listen to it. Maybe I’ll get to it when I don’t have a two year old of my own....

Weekend in Idaho

This last weekend we went up to see my family in Idaho! We left Friday morning and stopped at Uncle Krey’s office to have our eyeballs checked. PS—it’s the cutest thing ever to hear Tanner say “eyeballs”. 

Saturday, my cousin McCoy got baptized. What a neat experience to witness, especially during COVID!  We all got to attend, but it was literally straight to the point. We enjoyed a lovely luncheon afterwords. It’s always so nice to see my younger cousins choose to be baptized. I’m one of the older cousins on both my dad and my moms sides. On my dads side, I have cousins younger than 8–they love playing with Tanner! 

Sunday we had a BBQ with my dads family again and then just travelled home. Grandpa has been working in Boise. Helps keep his mind occupied, especially after grandma died.

Thursday night when I was down at my parents house, Lindsie was helping my grandma Karen with her pills...and my grandma says to her “thank you Karen, for helping me” and Lindsie just sits there like...that didn’t sound right, wait, you’re Karen! Haha! I guess part of getting old is being a little bit forgetful! ;)

Thursday during work I got my 5 year pearls! I can’t believe I have been with CBO for 5 years! It would have been 6, but I had my “sabbatical” for a year in Idaho Falls. 

I finally took T up to drylake today. I love our land!! I wore him on my back while we worked with the cows. Thank goodness too! We had one get a little ornery about being AI’ed..that we had to move quick. If I hadn’t of had Tanner on my back, he’d be a squished bug! We had so much fun and I’m glad we have that place to go to get away from the world. Even if it’s tough work and whine and go back and forth on wanting to be a farmers wife..at the end of the day, we love it!! 

Let Freedom Ring!

Fourth of July this year was SO different than years past! Normally we would be going to either Provo for the Stadium of Fire fireworks, or to Idaho Falls to see the Melaleuca fireworks. Some years we stay home and attend the fireworks in Hyrum on the 3rd, and then on the 4th, we’ll go to the parade in Hyrum. Y’all there was nada this year!! Ok..I lied. We still got to watch the fireworks in Hyrum on the 3rd, but other than that? Zip. Zero. Zilch. 

Sean’s parents invited us to a BBQ on the 3rd. We went over there with my parents and then stayed for the fireworks. T loved them!! It was so dang adorable to just sit and listen to him call out the colors of all the different fireworks. 

On the 4th, Devin spent the morning AI-ing cows..or as he puts it, he spent his morning at the south end of a north bound cow. Hahahah! 

We spent the day with his parents and had quite the firework show after. One of our fireworks went off like the year 2020. Started out all nice and peachy then all of sudden it’s on its side shooting and exploding and you have no idea where it’s gonna go or what’s gonna happen next! It got my adrenaline pumping, that’s for dang sure!! 

Tomorrow I get to see my Uncle Jared. I am so dang excited. He is my moms brother, just older than her, and he has been fighting a brain tumor since 1999. At least...that’s when they found it.  His doctors haven’t given him long, and I legit start to cry sometimes just thinking about him graduating this life. I’ll do another post on him when the time is right. For right now, I’m just gonna enjoy tomorrow and letting him meet my wild child. 

I hope everyone enjoyed their 4th of July celebration. I hope that one day, people will again realize that we live in the greatest nation. WE make this country great! White people make America great. Black people make America great. Blue people, green people, cops, religious leaders, all make this place great—YOU make America great.  Let freedom ring, y’all! Let us remember the freedoms that we have and what other people lost for us to get them. 

February-June

I’ve been a little bit better at writing in my journal at home, but not so much at putting it on the blog.  I’m trying so hard!! A lot has happened since February, when I wrote my last post.  Where do I even begin?! Coronavirus, Black Lives Matter, Gerald came to visit, thought T broke his foot, Mommy’s day, Baby Animal Days, Bear world—the list can go on and on and on.  We’re entering our busy time of year where D’s gone most nights on the farm. There have been sooo many snakes up there this year! It makes me feel better for not having T up there cause most of them are rattlers. 

COVID has pretty much ruined all our lives, haha! 2020 has seriously been like one of the most trying years. We can’t go anywhere, at least without a mask. People are getting sick and dying, having to quarantine from loved ones. It’s a mess! Then everyone freaked out over BLM..which I don’t understand. I have never once looked at a black human being and thought them any lesser of a human than I.  I won’t even get into that because honestly this will probably be in history books when our grandkids are growing up. Hopefully whoever rights those gets both sides of the story. 

I took 2 weeks off to quarantine the end of April into May. During that time, T fell off his camp chair and we legit thought he broke his foot. Xrays after xrays and thankfully he did not! Wahoo!! 

Uncle Geralds wife died and due to COVID we didn’t want to risk grandma and grandpa going to Oregon.  LaDawn and Jedd didn’t think he should be alone after everything that was happening so they brought him down for a while! It was nice to have him here. He smoked us some ribs and salmon. I’m now a salmon fan which I didn’t know was possible. But here I am...craving it. Lol

Mother’s Day came and went, we went to Baby Animal Days with Sarah, Taylor and Millie and a couple weeks later we went to Idaho Falls with grandma and grandpa Fabricius and went to bear world and saw grandma Bonnies grave. It was such a relaxing trip!! It was so nice to see my grandmas grave. I miss her like crazy. I’ll love you forever, grandma! 

This last weekend we went to Glendale Reservoir to play at the lake and it was so much fun!  Tanner and Hadley had a freaking BLAST! 

73 days until Kendal comes home. We can’t even wait! I always say in gonna try and be better at blogging... but we all know that we’ll believe it when we see it haha. Y’all life can be a b*tch sometimes. 2020 has been rough. But with God’s help I know we’ll get through it!! 

BIRTHDAY MONTH!

Y’all..we have entered the Jackson family birthday month.  Devin hates January and February because they feel like 87 years long, but I LOVE FEBRUARY! It’s birthday month!! (I will accept gifts all month long.) Today starts out the first birthday.  My grandma Karen is 78 year young today.  I’ve always had a really close relationship with my grandma Karen.  I used to go down to her house pretty much every weekend during the summer to stay and help her with yard work and cleaning and anything else she needed help with.  HAPPY BIRTHDAY GRANDMA! I LOVE YOU!

Sean’s birthday is on LOVE day! Lucky dude.  Valentines Day is my second favorite holiday and he gets to have his birthday on it!! This year, we have Sean’s birthday, Valentines Day and Tanner is having surgery on that day.  There is a possibility that I’m gonna be a hot mess that day.

February 26^th is my mama’s birthday! The big 46! You’re now closer to 50 than you are to 40! Haha! I’ve always enjoyed having my mom’s birthday two days before mine.  We had a lot of family partys when I was little so it always felt like I had double presents.  I would get to open presents at the family party and then again on my actual birthday!  I used to think that was so cool!

February 28^th is MY birthday! Wahoo! This one is a little bittersweet.  Since my mom is 20 years and two days older than me, that means I am turning 26.  The age where I no longer get to be on my parents insurance.  Now don’t get me wrong, Devin’s insurance aint bad at all.  Especially with Tanner having surgery we’ll no doubt hit our deductible..but it’s not Autoliv insurance good. (Sorry babe..haha!)

On Tuesday I helped my neighbor friend out with some royal icing cookies.  I haven’t made cookies since before T was born!  I didn’t realize how badly I missed it! So prepare yourselves for a cookie post..Valentine’s Day cookies are coming up!